


ka'meraad

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Agender Character, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Other, Pon Farr, Qunari, Vashoth Warden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Qunari Pon Farr? Qunari Pon Farr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ka'meraad

**Author's Note:**

> [ Important headcanon note: I write qunari as agender and monomorphic, and the monomorphic bit actually comes into play in this story. ]

The timing _couldn’t_ have been any worse.  
Branka was still trying to soothe Hespith, who’d been weeping ever since they’d left the Anvil behind — sundered and silent, its smith having leapt his way back to the Stone. Alistair was still bug-eyed about the broodmother they’d killed some time earlier — days before, hours, a week, who knew anymore — and Morrigan was especially snappish and solitary ever since they’d left the comfort and familiarity of the surface behind. Twice she’d slipped away from them as they slept, presumably to roam as something other than human for a while, returning whenever she grew weary of it.

Briar Heart was supposedly the leader of this band of darkspawn killers, but ey had never felt so powerless. It took more than enough energy to remind emself continuously that the Stone could not crush them, that the darkspawn weren’t numerous enough here to overwhelm them, that… that the ogres who accosted them outside Bownammar were no longer qunari, no longer anything recognisable as sentient.

But most of all there was Sten, on whom ey had counted to help em keep the other companions on track — yet Sten had grown more and more restless and twitchy ever since they’d left Bownammar. And, Briar Heart realised with a sinking feeling, it was beginning to rub off.

"What could _possibly_ remain for her to cry about?” Sten griped, curling and uncurling eir hands as they dangled between eir knees. Ey sat on a crate with eir back against the crude stone wall, eir posture sprawled and insolent, as insolent as eir scowl. Briar Heart found it unexpectedly endearing.

"What would you know about it? You don’t even have emotions," Alistair retorted suddenly, with uncharacteristic rancour, and Briar Heart stopped mending eir armour to stare at him in surprise. Out of everyone, he talked back to Sten the least.

But Sten shot him a black look and snarled, and Alistair shrank back and fell silent, and that was the end of that.

—

"Are you… well?" Briar Heart finally got the nerve to ask some time later, after Alistair had fallen into a fitful doze, Morrigan had slipped off again, and Hespith snored softly as Branka stroked her hair and brooded.  
Sten fixed eir hooded gaze on em, looked em up and down, and replied, “Are you?”

"Not entirely, but it’s just… being underground, the darkspawn…"

Sten grunted, disbelief written all over eir face — a face that became easier and easier to read the more Briar Heart watched it. And ey _had_ been watching it a lot lately, hadn’t ey.  
Briar Heart rubbed eir palms against the butter-soft patchwork leather of eir breeches, clearing eir throat — and Sten sat up abruptly, grimacing as if in pain. Their eyes met again as ey beckoned Briar Heart closer.

"We must get out of here. These… Deep Roads. _Soon.”_

"It’s going to take forever, Sten, just like it took to get in here. We’re in the _Dead Trenches,_ Orzammar is—”

Sten cut eir off with a sharp wave of eir hand and an impatient snarl. “Then we move quickly. Let them trail us, if we must.” Ey jerked eir head towards the other Warden and the two dwarves, and Briar Heart assumed ey included Morrigan in eir statement as well.

"What are you saying? We leave them behind and run for it? _Why?”_

"Because I _refuse_ to let what is about to happen to us happen down here.”

—

Perhaps Briar Heart _was_ the Bleeding Heart that Morrigan sometimes called em — ey refused to take Sten’s advice, and when all were awake, they once again resumed their slow and steady journey back to Orzammar. The darkspawn had not diminished, which didn’t help, and every time they were engaged in another battle with the creatures, Sten seemed to glower at em as if to say, _“I hope you’re regretting this, because I sure am.”_

The restlessness in both of their bodies seemed to increase with every passing day — although they had no way of measuring them, they all knew that the days were passing, and probably quickly. At first Briar Heart found emself fidgeting with the fastenings on eir overcoat, or tapping eir feet constantly on the echoing stone. It spread through their limbs and into their torsos, until Sten found swordplay more relaxing than trying to remain still enough to sleep. Briar Heart ceased eir meditations, and eir magic developed an unfocused wildness that occasionally caused friendly fire during battles and made em anxious.

An errant fire blast grazed Sten during one such battle, and ey rounded on Briar Heart with sword in hands, a growl rumbling in eir chest. Briar Heart took an involuntary step backward, even as Alistair shouted at Sten to get eir head back in the game. Branka tried shoving at em, but ey took no notice, eir eyes locked on Briar Heart, who was equally frozen in place.

And then ey lunged, and Briar Heart shouted in surprise and threw eir hands up, warding magic leaping from eir fingers to cover em. Stopped short by the shield, Sten tossed the sword aside and tried to bull through, head lowered and shoulders hunched.  
Briar Heart yelled for Morrigan, who zapped Sten with a mild bolt of electricity. Sten jerked, grunted, backed away shaking eir head.

"I told you," ey rasped when ey came back to emself fully. "It will be worse down here. I _told_ you.”

Every time Briar Heart tried to sleep after that, ey kept seeing Sten lunging for em, except ey had magically lost eir armour and clothing and ey were coming for Briar Heart’s.  
Ey promptly took all the watches and pretended sleep didn’t exist.

—

Ey did doze off eventually, and woke suddenly with sweat prickling eir flesh from head to toe. Eir gut spasmed, the flash of heat uncoiling outward to eir groin, the insides of eir thighs, and suddenly Briar Heart realised what Sten had been warning em of all this time.

"No, no, no," ey whispered frantically, looking up and around at the oppressive and impassive stone, at their companions so close by, at the dark passageway that may yield darkspawn at any point, but none of it mattered now, nothing mattered except the ebb and pulse of heat in eir core, the clenching of muscles that only quickened the heat, and…  
An image of Sten flickered into eir wild thoughts, and a red-hot spike stabbed em in the gut in retaliation, bending em over double with a surprised cry.

"Briar Heart?" Alistair murmured drowsily, rolling over on his pallet. "What happened? You all right?"

"Take the watch," ey gasped, and Alistair sat up, another question forming on his tongue. "Just take it! I need… I’ll…"

Ey didn’t bother attempting to finish the sentence, already on eir feet and stumbling towards the passage away from their camp. Sten had surely known their time was imminent, because ey usually didn’t leave the camp unless absolutely necessary. But if ey’d stayed close by, and the need had fallen upon them unsuspecting, Alistair and Morrigan and Branka and Hespith would have been scarred for their lives.

As it were now, they’d only have the darkspawn for audience once Briar Heart found em.

"Oh, these stupid roads be damned — where _are_ you?” Briar Heart hissed, one arm curled around eir middle and the other feeling eir way in the dimness. Ey were hard as the stone that surrounded em, as wet as the shallow brackish pools, and it was so tempting to just sink to eir knees and—

"Here." Briar Heart straightened up reflexively at the authoritative sound of Sten’s voice, but the authoritative sound of Sten’s voice also shot another red-hot spike into eir groin, and ey bent over again with a weak groan. There was the sound of quick footsteps, then eir hands pulling Briar Heart up and pushing em face-first against the wall, and Briar Heart arching eir back, weakened and blindly desperate.

"Surely it is another punishment I suffer," Sten griped, even as ey yanked Briar Heart’s leathers down and kicked eir feet as far apart as ey would go, even as ey bit into the juncture between Briar Heart’s neck and shoulder until ey pushed eir hips back against em, even as ey dug eir fingers into Briar Heart’s hips and pushed emself in, "that I must share seed with the offspring of Tal-Vashoth."

Ey took Briar Heart first, arm curled tight around eir middle and eir grunts muffled against eir silver-white hair as ey thrust, but Briar Heart took Sten afterward, and Briar Heart showed em just how much of a punishment _ey_ found it, sitting back on eir haunches and locking eir arm around Sten’s shoulders as ey rode Briar Heart’s cock, and ey both knew that breeding Qunari did not face each other, did not acknowledge each other except to fuck and spill their seed, but Sten did not protest, and rode Briar Heart facing em, and Briar Heart tucked that victory away in a most secret place.

When the fever finally passed, their seed spent and their bodies weak and loose, Briar Heart and Sten dressed silently, facing away from each other, and returned to camp. Alistair raised his eyebrow sleepily when they passed, but no one spoke, and it was just as well.

—

Briar Heart raised eir face to the wintry afternoon sun and sobbed eir gratefulness at its warmth and light. Alistair was busy doing similarly; Morrigan had slipped away to plunge her hands into the mountain snow; Oghren was shuffling uneasily and trying to concentrate on breathing, his eyes shut tight and his face red.

Sten turned eir face upward as well, but did not close eir eyes or smile or sigh. Ey were still thinking.

"One of us is going to face the Archdemon with another life growing inside em," ey finally spoke, and Briar Heart opened eir eyes and looked at em.

"Yes," ey responded, cautiously. "What of it?"

"If it is me, I will… stay behind." Sten cleared eir throat and rolled eir shoulders, clearly uncomfortable but determined to say what it is ey had deliberated upon saying. "I would not put this new life in danger, and I am not a Grey Warden."

Briar Heart regarded em for a long moment, a moment almost too long for Sten’s liking. “And if it’s me?”

"Then please do not die." Sten hefted eir pack on eir shoulders and started down the steps and away from Orzammar’s doors. "I do not enjoy the idea of mourning kadan _and_ imekari.”


End file.
